What to do ...
1. Slice and peel apples
2. In a large bowl, combine the yellow cake mixes, sugar, and cinnamon
3. Add in the melted butter and stir to combine and crumbly
4. Put apples into slow cooker.
5. Set slow cooker on high.
6. Pour the caramel sauce over the apples.
7. Pour dry ingredients over the apples and caramel. Spread it out with a spoon so that the entire surface is covered.
8. Cover with a lid and cook on high for 2 hours. Set the slow cooker to low and remove the lid. Let sit for 30 minutes without the lid so the top of the crisp can harden.
9. Serve with Ice Cream and additional caramel drizzle.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Hard to believe this is almost the last "Julie's Crock of the Week" for season 4! You will get one more next week, but that will be from the winner of the Julie's Crock of the Week Giveaway (MAKE SURE TO ENTER TO WIN! Click on the link above to enter your recipe in the contest!). This recipe reminds my of my grandma, who passed away about 10 years ago. She was a fantastic cook. I wish she would have lived a few more years to see my family and help me out with recipes and tips now that I am cooking for a family instead of just myself! While I retained some tips from her over the years, there is so much more I could have learned from her. This soup is one she made. This one and her bean & ham soup were ones I remember most. My grandpa had polio, so his mobility was limited, and since he couldn't do manual labor, the two of them invested in a lot of businesses, and worked hard! They ran and owned a few restaurants and taverns, and my grandma handled the cooking. After my grandpa passed in the 70's, she went on to be the head cook for a hospital, so let me tell you, she knew her stuff. My dad is an excellent cook, too. He helped as a kid with working in the tavern and restaurants with them. I like to think I'm carrying on her passion and traditions with my family, and with sharing my love of cooking with you all through WGLR over the years. Thanks for making this so fun for me. So, make this soup and whip up a loaf of beer bread like my Grandma Bernice did whenever she made soup, and enjoy it with your family! It's an easy and relatively inexpensive recipe, too! It's Crock Pot Hamburger Soup.

CROCK POT HAMBURGER SOUP

2lbs lean ground beef

1 white onion, peeled and diced

1⁄4teaspoon ground black pepper, more to taste

1⁄2teaspoon dry oregano, more to taste

1⁄2teaspoon dry basil, more to taste

1⁄4teaspoon seasoning salt

1 (1 1/2 ounce) envelope onion soup mix

6 cups water, more to desired consistency

1(8 ounce) can tomato sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1(15 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1(15 ounce) can corn, drained

1 cup celery, sliced

1⁄4 cup celery leaves, coarsely chopped

1 cup fresh carrot, sliced

1 cup white potato, peeled and cut into small cubes

garlic salt, to taste (after cooking)

Brown ground beef with the onion in a pan. Drain. Transfer to slow cooker and add all remaining ingredients, and stir it up. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Sprinkle on garlic salt to taste when done. Serve with shredded cheese or sour cream on top, if desired!

Monday, March 16, 2015

Oh my, with temps in the 50’s coming this week, and St.Patrick’s Day next week, spring is in the air! Yay! This week’s recipe is perfect for your St.Patrick’s Day celebrations this weekend and next week. It’s Crock Pot Corned Beef & Cabbage Stew! This is a great way to prepare the traditional St.Patty’s Day tradition, or it’s a great way to use up the leftovers from a meal of corned beef & cabbage! We really liked it, and the leftovers were even better. My only suggestion is to chop the cabbage up well and get the corned beef in a bite size way, because my pieces were a bit to large and made quite a mess when we tried to eat it, but the mess was worth it! Bake some crusty soda bread to go with it, and you have a perfect Irish meal to celebrate this fun holiday with. I got this from the awesome Skinnytaste blog. a serving of 1 3/4 cups is only about 280 calories. And if your corned beef brisket doesn’t come with a seasoning packet, you will have to season this up yourself.

Place the corned beef brisket in your crock pot. Add leeks, garlic, carrots, yellow pepper, water, bay leaves, and parsley. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until the brisket shreds easily. Remove the brisket from the crock pot onto a plate, and shred it up. Return meat to the crock pot, and then add the chopped cabbage and potato. Cook on low for another hour, and serve!

Monday, March 9, 2015

One of my favorite things to get when we go out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant is Crab Rangoon. Oh, how I love them, dipped in sweet & sour sauce especially! So, when I came across this recipe online, I knew I had to try it! It isn’t bad, although I prefer it surrounded in a deep fried wonton wrapper! But this was quite tasty on a cracker, and easy to throw together. You could even use it as filling to make your own rangoon at home if you are feeling adventurous! For this recipe, use a small crock pot like the little dipper, or a 2.5 quart one (which is what I did).

Crock Pot Crab Rangoon Dip

2 8oz bricks of Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 Cup Sour Cream

4 Green Onions, chopped

1 1/2 Teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce

2 Tablespoons Powdered Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

1 12oz Package Imitation Crab Meat, pulverized

Add all ingredients to the crock pot and mix together as well as you can (it helps to cube up the cream cheese). Cook on low for about 2 hours, stirring at least once. Serve on crackers or any dipper of your choice!

Monday, March 2, 2015

With another super duper cold snap upon us, I was craving some comfort food! One recipe in the crock pot that has not been a success for me in the past is mac n cheese. I made a recipe back in season 2 of The Crock of the Week, and it was good, but it wasn’t quite the creamy consistency I was looking for. I tried again last fall and failed miserably. It always curdled on me! I came across the recipe below online a few weeks ago, and the author of the blog had the exact same problems and frustration as me, and THIS is the recipe that worked for her. So I decided to try one more time, but if it didn’t work, I was never going to make mac n cheese in the crock pot ever again! Haha! Well, since I am sharing it with you this week, you can probably guess the outcome. It was AWESOME! The key is NO EGGS! Don’t use a crock pot recipe that calls for eggs in the ingredient list! This recipe uses a can of condensed cheddar soup in the mix, and I think that is what made it work so wonderfully. YUM YUM YUM!!!

Crock Pot “No Fail” Macaroni & Cheese

3 cups uncooked elbow macaroni

5 tablespoons butter

18 oz grated medium cheddar cheese (about 2.5-3 cups)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 (10 3/4 ounce) can condensed cheddar cheese soup

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole milk

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Boil elbow macaroni in a saucepan for about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside. Then, melt butter in a saucepan, and slowly stir in the grated cheddar cheese over low-med heat until it is completely melted. It should only take a few minutes, and stir almost constantly to avoid burning.

Transfer melted cheddar to the crock pot, and add in sour cream, milk, soup, dry mustard, and salt & pepper. Stir in partially cooked elbow macaroni. Cook on low for about 2 hours, stirring a few times. Keep an eye on it, as all crock pots cook differently. It was done in about an hour and 45 minutes for me.